This Love

by Hilaria Alexander

  He speaks, I thought.

  “Hello,” I replied, glancing at him, recovering from the shock. He opened the fridge and seemed to be looking for something. I could have tried to be nicer and asked if he needed any help. Instead, I decided to get something off my chest.

  “I get it, Mr. Koll, you don’t like me,” I blurted out, “no need to make things any more uncomfortable between us. I know we both have Lou’s best interest at heart.”

  “That we do,” he said, looking in my direction for just a second. I was standing near the kitchen island making some coffee. He opened a cabinet looking for a glass.

  “Just to be clear, it’s not that I don’t like you, per se, Ella. I don’t have anything against you. I just strongly despise people who waste their talents. You do have talent, but I see you just as a wanderer. You have no aim, no purpose. Where is it that you’re going? Where is your journey taking you?”

  Ouch.

  So that was it. He didn’t like me because he thought I was wasting my time. Still, he had just told me I was talented; that almost made up for his brashness.

  I stared at him, unable to say anything back.

  “You were trained as a classical musician, yes?”

  I nodded.

  “Well then, what are you doing here?” he asked, raising one of his bushy, gray-haired eyebrows.

  “Trying to learn something other than classical music,” I replied, hesitantly.

  “Maybe you should stick to what you know,” he said without looking at me, pouring himself a glass of water out of a bottle of San Pellegrino.

  The man sure knew how to speak his mind when he wanted. Still, I wasn’t happy with it. How dare he? Sure, he might know more than all of us when it came to music, but how did he know what was best for me?

  I narrowed my eyes at him, and I felt the urge to yell something silly along the lines of “you don’t know me at all,” when I had another thought.

  He gave me a brief glance, and started walking away. I followed him.

  “Wait!” I said. “Did you always want to be a music producer, Mr. Koll? Or did you initially want to be a musician?” He stopped in his tracks, his back to me. He turned halfway to give me a glance. I couldn’t quite see his face, but what I could see of him, told me he wasn’t completely indifferent to my words. “Maybe you realized you didn’t have it in you to make it as a musician,” I continued, “Maybe you realized you were more skilled elsewhere, like behind the control board. Maybe you realized you’d make a better producer than a performer, no matter how hard you tried. So you decided to go for what you were better at.” He was facing me now, still listening, his hand slightly shaking while holding the glass of water. I couldn’t hold his gaze, so I focused on the bubbles that were forming inside the glass.

  “I know I’m a good classical musician, but I also know I will never be as great as I want to be. I don’t have it in me,” I said, my heart hammering against my chest, partly out of nervousness, partly out of anger. “I came to terms with it a long, long time ago, but my parents never gave up on the idea. Now I’m just trying to figure out what I can be great at. I love classical music, but I don’t want it to be the focus of my life. I still want to play. I want there to be music in my life. I want music to be the focus of my life.” I blurted out the words, afraid I would lose the nerve to say all I needed to get off my chest. I exhaled, and brought my eyes back to his. He was just still standing there a few feet away from me. He didn’t move or react for a few seconds; then, I swore I saw the glimpse of a smile.

  “Do it then. Show me what you’ll be great at,” he replied, saying the words as if he had just challenged me.

  By the grace of God, citing some other work commitment, the man left a couple of days later. All in all, we still had to endure a full week of him. After our little “face off,” he went back to ignoring me, meaning he wouldn’t talk or interact with me, but I could always feel him watching me. When he left, playful, silly Lou was back, and no matter how longs our days were, he would always find some time to do something fun to wash over the tiredness and the stress. Sometimes we would de-stress in the bedroom, but mostly he would try to drag me out of the apartment. And day after day, I fell more and more in love with Florence, as I was falling more and more in love with him. Yes, I wasn’t doubting my feelings anymore, I was one hundred percent sure this was love, it had to be. We hadn’t said it out loud yet, but I could see it in his eyes, I could see it when we were together. This was love, no doubt about it. A couple of times I thought I was going to blurt out the words to him. I wasn’t sure if either one of us was ready for that yet, though. I thought I was going to betray myself and tell him I loved him when he decided to “celebrate” Hans Koll’s departure and take me to the Uffizi Gallery.

  Van Gogh would always hold a special place in my heart, but those Renaissance painters, dammit! Every single painting in the gallery was so beautiful, the lines so clean and the colors so vibrant, I was overwhelmed with emotion and I had tears pooling in my eyes, my heart beating out of control. Being here, so close to such greatness, was a joy hard to describe. Being here holding the hand of the man I loved, on top of that, added even more to the equation.

  We had seen paintings by Titian, Rafael, Artemisia Gentileschi, and now we were staring at Botticelli’s Birth of Venus.

  “Are you Stendhaling?” Lou whispered to me in a playful tone, while hugging me around my waist from behind.

  “Stendhaling?” I asked, puzzled.

  “Yeah, you know. Fainting, getting dizzy, the whole Stendhal Syndrome. You look like you’re just about to cry!”

  “Shut up!” I choked on a sob, playfully slapping the hand that was hugging me around my waist.

  “My lady has a tender heart for art,” he added, laughing softly, pressing his mouth against my shoulder. My lady. “You’re prettier than her,” he whispered. He meant I was prettier than Botticelli’s Venus.

  “Blasphemy,” I murmured. He nuzzled me on the neck, tickling me.

  We stood like that for several minutes, staring at her, as close as security would allow. There was something so perfect in this moment, I wanted to remember it forever.

  We started our third week working together, and most of the songs had been recorded. Lou’s goal was to get as much done here and then go back to Nashville and just add the final touches. In order to have a full album, he still had two or three songs to write. He looked through his notebook, we tried brainstorming together, but we couldn’t come up with anything. He decided we should take a break from the studio.

  We found sketchpads in the house, and we took them with us. Lou grabbed his guitar too, just in case. We sat on a wall by the river, and tried to come up with something, anything. Time went by and we still couldn’t get anything done. We saw someone nearby painting a picture of the city, and I kept looking at the man working on the painting stroke by stroke.

  “Do you know how to paint?” Lou asked. I chuckled and shook my head no. “No other activities were ever allowed in the Fitzpatrick household unless it involved sitting on a piano bench?”

  I rolled my eyes and gave him a tight-lipped smile.

  “Let’s try something,” he said. “I’ll draw you and you’ll draw me. Want to try?”

  “Oh, I know I’m going to suck at it already.”

  “Then we’ll both suck together.”

  “How am I supposed to draw you if you keep moving?” He gave me another smirk, lowering his eyes again to his pad. This had been an awful idea. He kept making funny faces and goofing around while I tried to draw him. Instead, I had stood still like a statue when he asked me to. “Are you done?” I asked.

  “Show me yours, and I’ll show you mine,” he winked.

  “We’ve done that already,” I grabbed the sketch pad from his hands.

  I burst out laughing, partly relieved, when I saw that his sketch was just as awful as mine.

  “Oh my God, we are both terrible!” I laughed.

  “Hey!�
�� he said, grabbing my sketch pad to look at his portrait. Now it was his turn to laugh. He laughed so much, his nose scrunched up, his dimples showing. I wanted to grab his face and kiss him. We were in Italy; displays of affection were not frowned upon.

  He sat my pad down, reached for my hand and gave it a squeeze.

  “Who cares! We can’t draw, but we can play.” As soon as the words left his lips, I saw him repeat them in his head. He looked at me again and I knew he was onto something.

  We scrambled to grasp the pencils that were trying to roll off our notepads.

  I started writing and brainstorming at the same time. He scribbled something on the notepad and immediately after grabbed his guitar.

  I recited the verse I had and he started to find the right chord. His mind was already thinking about the melody for a song that didn’t exist.

  He started singing while strumming the guitar,

  We can’t draw, but we can play

  Hide your pencils, or throw them away

  It was a fast-tempo rock’n’roll tune. It sounded nothing like any of the material we had been recording. Still, it could be a fun song.

  A guitar is all you need,

  Come on, baby roll up your sleeves, uh-uh

  Please believe me when I say,

  I wouldn’t have it any other way

  “Are you sure about this?” I asked. “It doesn’t even sound like any of your songs.”

  He gave me a nod and closed his eyes, biting his bottom lip, trying to think of what was coming next.

  Please believe me, it is true,

  I was lost when I found you

  Call the priest, call the press,

  I’ll give in when you say yes

  He gave me a look, strumming a couple more chords, before stopping and smiling at me. He jumped off the wall and grabbed my face to kiss him.

  “Give me that mouth,” he said against my lips. I smiled and kissed him, only too happy to oblige.

  CHAPTER 18

  Another week went by and we got almost everything he wanted to work on covered. The more we got done though, the more I had this feeling of uneasiness creep up inside of me. Our days were numbered. The album we had been working on was close to being finished; Lou would be soon heading back to the US. We would have to say goodbye. For good, this time. And it wasn’t just saying goodbye to Lou that scared me and saddened me. Sooner or later I would have to make some decisions about my future.

  It seemed the thought of it started bothering him too, I could see it in the way I would find him staring at me and then he’d look away. Not a smile, nor a smirk; nothing at all. He had these brief moments where he was suddenly serious and brooding. It wasn’t like him.

  I had no idea when I’d be returning to Amsterdam, but it had to be soon. This wasn’t going to be easy. I could have kept living my life here in Europe, if only I had been able to ditch the voice in my head telling me I had to make a decision. This was not my life, it wasn’t my reality. What was I going to do? Stay in Amsterdam forever? How much longer was I going to postpone making decisions, figuring out what life and career I wanted to have? After the last few weeks, I was sure of one thing. I wanted to make music. What I needed to figure out was how.

  On Friday, when we were done for the week and the guys were about to leave, Giuliano invited us to come see him play. We had gone to one of his shows before and had a lot of fun.

  “Sorry, we won’t be here,” Lou told him. “We’re going to Rome this weekend.”

  “We are?” I asked, turning to him, surprised. We had talked about going when I first got here, but we had been so busy, I wasn’t really sure it was going to happen.

  “Yeah,” he replied, locking eyes with me, giving me a lopsided grin.

  This weekend had goodbye written all over it.

  I hadn’t been completely wrong. We were having a nice time, but the impending signs of doom were everywhere. It was in the way he’d linger just a little bit longer if he held and kissed my hand, in the way his eyes were clouded and not as bright and playful as they usually were. We both froze when someone asked us if we were newlyweds or if someone would address us as Mr. and Mrs. Rivers. I was thrown off by his changes in behavior, but I understood it, because I felt the same. Day after day, I was dreading the countdown. I would probably have to leave after this week. But for the moment, we were in Rome, and we had so much to see and so much to do, and I didn’t want to let go of his hand until I had to.

  He didn’t approach the subject until Sunday evening, while we were taking a walk around town. We had walked up to Spanish steps, then had dinner somewhere around Trevi Fountain, and now we were walking down the Imperial Fora. The sun had set and most of the tourists where gone; it was mostly couples and families walking down the boulevard.

  Lou and I started playing a game counting how many cats we could spot between the ruins. Forget “Cats of Instagram.” “Cats of Rome” had to be a thing. Maybe it was already.

  “Look at that one on that column!” I said, pointing excitedly. “Do you think he’s going to jump off there?”

  “Ella.” He took my hand in his and frowned. Was he staring at my knuckles?

  “What’s wrong?”

  “What are we doing?”

  “Uh…we’re spending time together?”

  “You know what I mean,” he replied, locking eyes with mine. “Come with me. Come back to the U.S. with me.”

  I stared at him for the longest time, unable to say anything. Was he serious? He couldn’t be serious, could he? I thought he would approach the subject of us parting ways, but I didn’t think he would say something like this.

  “You’re joking. Are you joking?” I asked him, confused.

  “Do you think I would joke about something like this?” he let go of my hand and placed his on the wall overlooking the ruins. “I don’t want to lose you. Come with me. Please.”

  I didn’t want to hurt him, but there was no way I could say yes to him.

  I shook my head to say no. “I can’t,” I frowned, my voice just a whisper.

  “Why? Because of the life you have in Amsterdam? You know as well as I do that sooner or later you’ll have to move on. You can’t be there forever. You could come with me, I could help you...”

  “How?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him. “You’re going to take care of me? And how exactly are you going to do that?” I asked. I didn’t know if I should feel flattered or insulted.

  He scoffed at me. “Just think about it! If you wanted to play, I could introduce you to the right people. You’re talented, everyone can see that.”

  “Yeah, but I still haven’t figured out what I want to do! And how could it ever be right for my boyfriend to be my ‘in’ to the industry,” I replied, raising my voice a little too much. His eyes bore into mine and he seemed shocked by my reaction. Seriously? What did he expect? That I would just jump right in? First off, I felt I still had a job to go back to. I didn’t want to leave people hanging, when they were the ones who had rescued me and offered help when I was lost. Second, following someone else’s plan seemed to be a really bad idea. What about what I wanted? What about what was right for me? What if I followed him and we didn’t work out? Then what? I didn’t want to lose him forever, but I wasn’t going to give in.

  “Don’t be ridiculous! We can be together and you can take your time figuring out what you want to do. I need you with me,” he pleaded.

  I looked away from him and pretended to be busy looking at the ruins. It was getting darker and darker, and although the lights illuminated the monuments and the boulevard, I couldn’t see that well anymore. I certainly couldn’t spot any cats as we had before.

  “Are you really expecting me to say yes?” I asked him.

  He exhaled and said, “I’m hoping you’ll say yes.”

  “Do you remember last time you asked me to do what you wanted?”

  “Yes, I do,” he nodded. “And look how that turned out. Don’t you see that we work be
tter together?”

  I turned around to look at him and I could see a small, hopeful smile on his face. I couldn’t bring myself to smile back. I loved that he wanted me with him, but I started doubting if this is how it would always be between us. Him leading, me following. Is that how I wanted to spend my life? How was this different from my parents planning out my future? It was never going to be enough following him. As realization seeped in, I was engulfed by feelings of sadness and disappointment. I was angry at him too, for not understanding this wasn’t what I needed, and it was only going to break us. This was going to break us up.

  Silent tears fell from my eyes. I tried to hide them from him, but he took my face in his hands, and started covering me with kisses, whispering sweet words.

  “Don’t leave me,” “I need you,” was all he said, over and over. He spoke with a softness in his voice that broke my heart. I believed him when he said he needed me. I needed him too, I wanted him with me at all times, but I had to find myself first; I knew I would never truly be myself with him and completely happy if I didn’t at least try to be my own person first.

  He pressed his lips on mine, and then he kissed my cheek, underneath my chin, my neck, and then started all over again. I felt my skin burn under his touch, but I was craving more than just sweet kisses.

  He lifted me up on the wall, standing between my legs. I grabbed his face and kissed him, parting his lips with my tongue, tasting and exploring his mouth. He kissed me deeply, giving me what I wanted for a moment and then teasing and tantalizing the next one. He smiled briefly between kisses. My heart fluttered as if it was the first time I had seen him smile. He made me forget what we were even arguing about for a moment.

  “I don’t want to be mad at you,” I whispered against his lips, cradling his jaw.

  “Then don’t be,” he replied, smirking.

  “I can’t always do what you want me to do. I came here for you. Now you’re asking me to come to Tennessee with you. What’s next? You’ll ask me to come on tour with you, right?”

  “Maybe. Why not? Would that be so bad?”